Catching the wind : Edward Kennedy and the liberal hour / Neal Gabler.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Crown, [2020]Edition: First editionDescription: xxxvi, 887 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates: illustrations ; 25 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780307405449
- 0307405443
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | Biography | KENNEDY, E. G115 | Available | 33111010433262 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK . "One of the truly great biographies of our time."-Sean Wilentz, New York Times bestselling author of Bob Dylan in America and The Rise of American Democracy
"A landmark study of Washington power politics in the twentieth century in the Robert Caro tradition."-Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author of American Moonshot
The epic, definitive biography of Ted Kennedy-an immersive journey through the life of a complicated man and a sweeping history of the fall of liberalism and the collapse of political morality.
Catching the Wind is the first volume of Neal Gabler's magisterial two-volume biography of Edward Kennedy. It is at once a human drama, a history of American politics in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and a study of political morality and the role it played in the tortuous course of liberalism.
Though he is often portrayed as a reckless hedonist who rode his father's fortune and his brothers' coattails to a Senate seat at the age of thirty, the Ted Kennedy in Catching the Wind is one the public seldom saw-a man both racked by and driven by insecurity, a man so doubtful of himself that he sinned in order to be redeemed. The last and by most contemporary accounts the least of the Kennedys, a lightweight. He lived an agonizing childhood, being shuffled from school to school at his mother's whim, suffering numerous humiliations-including self-inflicted ones-and being pressed to rise to his brothers' level. He entered the Senate with his colleagues' lowest expectations, a show horse, not a workhorse, but he used his "ninth-child's talent" of deference to and comity with his Senate elders to become a promising legislator. And with the deaths of his brothers John and Robert, he was compelled to become something more- the custodian of their political mission.
In Catching the Wind , Kennedy, using his late brothers' moral authority, becomes a moving force in the great "liberal hour," which sees the passage of the anti-poverty program and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Then, with the election of Richard Nixon, he becomes the leading voice of liberalism itself at a time when its power is waning- a "shadow president," challenging Nixon to keep the American promise to the marginalized, while Nixon lives in terror of a Kennedy restoration. Catching the Wind also shows how Kennedy's moral authority is eroded by the fatal auto accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, dealing a blow not just to Kennedy but to liberalism.
In this sweeping biography, Gabler tells a story that is Shakespearean in its dimensions- the story of a star-crossed figure who rises above his seeming limitations and the tragedy that envelopes him to change the face of America.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [743]-841) and index.
"The epic, definitive biography of Ted Kennedy--an immersive journey through the life of a complicated man and a sweeping history of the fall of liberalism and the collapse of political morality. Edward M. Kennedy was never expected to succeed. The youngest of nine, he lacked his brothers' natural gifts and easy grace. Yet after winning election to the Senate at the tender age of thirty, he became the most consequential legislator of his lifetime, perhaps even American history. Surviving the traumas of his brothers' assassinations, Ted Kennedy ultimately exerted the greatest effort keeping alive the mission of an active and caring government. He swept into the Senate at the high-water mark of the mid-century New Deal consensus and fulfilled the promise of that momentum throughout his glory years in the Senate as the booming voice of American liberalism. That voice found its greatest impact in the laws he passed that wove government firmly into American life, extending aid and opportunity to those in most desperate need. Two thousand pieces of legislation, ranging from health care to education to civil rights, bore Ted's fingerprints. He worked tirelessly to better people's lives, even after the Reagan-era push for limited government rewrote the contract between nation and citizens. He did this because he felt he owed it to those who suffered, and those with whom he empathized out of his own pain and ever-present sense of inadequacy. But Ted Kennedy was not immune to the darkness that plagued his family. He lived long enough to fail, to sin, to fall in and out of favor. The infamous incident at Chappaquiddick marked an unfortunate turning point in the youngest Kennedy's life, and it would not be his last brush with controversy. As his personal failures compounded in the public eye, he struggled to maintain the traction that had carried his agenda so far. The product of a decade of work and hundreds of interviews, Catching the Wind will be an essential work of history and biography. The first of two volumes in a sweeping narrative, it traces the extraordinary life of an American statesman from his early years through the turning point of the 1970s. It is a landmark study of legislative genius and a powerful exploration of the man who spent his career upholding his mandate in service of a better America"-- Provided by publisher.
Introduction: They came -- The youngest -- The least -- The succession -- "If his name was Edward Moore..." -- The lowest expectations -- "Do a little suffering" -- "A heightened sense of purpose" -- A dying wind -- All hell fell -- A fallen standard -- A shadow president -- "The wrong side of destiny" -- Starting from scratch -- "People do not want to be improved" -- "Awesome power with no discipline" -- S.3 -- "Our long national nightmare is over".
The youngest of nine, Edward M. Kennedy lacked his brothers' natural gifts and easy grace. Yet after winning election to the Senate at age thirty, he became the most consequential legislator of his lifetime. He swept into the Senate at the high-water mark of the mid-century New Deal consensus and fulfilled the promise of that momentum throughout his glory years in the Senate as the booming voice of American liberalism. That voice found its greatest impact in the laws he passed that wove government firmly into American life, extending aid and opportunity to those in most desperate need. In his life Kennedy lived was known to fail, to sin, to fall in and out of favor. Gabler provides a powerful exploration of the man who spent his career upholding his mandate in service of a better America. -- adapted from publisher info